Two of the people that keep me on my toes personally as far as music go is the Mayor of Donutville and Justin Deremo. The Mayor of Donutville is a one-man recording project from Carthage, Missouri, who draws a lot of inspiration of surf and Esquivel type arrangement and production. Very unique arrangement skills. I feel like I’m the 50 Cent to his Kanye in terms of production at times.

Justin Deremo is someone who I’ve known since I was 16, and if I had a best friend group, he’s in the top 5. Still keep in touch irregularly. He never likes the idea of putting his music out there. As he told me recently, he’d rather have 1 person out there who gets it as opposed to be a flavor of the week, and he’s just busy with social work and raising a kid. No one I know listens to music with as much depth as him, and the music he puts out is kinda this electronic kitsch dub type of thing that when he gets serious is really beautiful. https://justinderemo.bandcamp.com/ He hasn’t updated his bandcamp in like 11 years, and post sporadically on Soundcloud.